Delta

March has literally sprouted wings and just flown by. Yeah, it's true.

Last week I attended a short PNVSCA (Philipppines National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency) conference in Cebu. Yep, yet another acronym to learn in this country. Between the Philippine government and Peace Corps, no letter is left without deeper meaning. Anyways, it was a chance to see some other PC volunteers that I hadn't seen in a while, sleep with aircon, and meet other volunteers from different countries that are also volunteering in the Philippines. Korea, Japan, Australia, and Germany all had respresentatives present.

Last night was also a momentous occasion... graduation! I remember last year coming back from the ceremony, at midnight, and thinking "yeah, I'll definitely be sick next year at graduation time." Well, I forgot, and ended up going again. This year I came back thinking, "10:30 pm is better than midnight, and WOW, don't ever have to go to one of those again!" We had 70 graduating seniors, so the program lasted from 6:00-10:30.

My favorite part of graduation, aside from the end, is watching what must be a universal tendency for teenage students to get annoyed with their parents. It's a tradition here for the parents to also come up on stage when their senior walks to give them their cap and have pictures taken and then shake hands with the administrators and DepEd representative, and I know I saw a couple eye-rolls from students when parents couldn't figure out the front of the cap, or better yet, when they also had an added congratulatory garland to put around their son or daughter's neck and they got so flustered up on stage that they forgot to put it on first... leaving them trying to put this tiny necklace on around their kid's big ol' square topped hat. It's like a thought bubble pops up above the graduate's head saying, "Oh, please, just get this done so I can sit down!" It was cute.

Now for the rest of March. Yep, it's the end of the month so I'm definitely waiting on payday. Aaaand, as soon as the month is over, I get to have a visit from my mom and sister. :) So the faster March can fly the better!